One hot evening in March 2000 I drove to the outer eastern suburbs of Melbourne to see immigration minister Philip Ruddock addressing a community consultation on migration. Refugees and asylum seekers had been in the headlines, but the most passionate debate that night centred on another issue altogether: parent visas. Although they rarely rate a mention in the mainstream media, these visas for parents of permanent residents have continued to arouse great passion as ministers have come and gone. Now, the Turnbull government is attempting to manage the problem by introducing an entirely new five-year temporary visa, commencing next July. With the immigration department apparently unable to provide basic information about how great the demand for such a visa might be, it looks like a political fix rather than a coherent policy initiative, and is likely to create a new set of problems. To understand how we arrived at this point, it helps to go back to Melbourne's outer eastern suburbs on that March night more than a decade and a half ago.